There have been conventionally well known hydrogels exhibiting thermal reversibility such as agar and gelatin. The hydrogels show a sol state having fluidity by heating, and a gel state not having fluidity by cooling.
There have also been known compounds exhibiting reverse temperature characteristics from those of the hydrogels, or exhibiting a sol-gel transition in which a compound is in the sol state at low temperature and in the gel state at high temperature, including N,N-diisopropylacrylamide polymers, polypropylene glycol polymers and the like. These are expected to be applied for the fields of medicine and biotechnology, including cell culture carriers, wound dressing, bioadhesives and the like.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-301893.